Understanding What Your Customer Wants Before They Know It

I used to spend a lot of time in India, as most tech guys do. The subcontinent can be spectacularly disorienting for a Westerner. On one trip, I stayed in a blissfully air-conditioned, five-star hotel. Outside there was 100-degree heat, and the uniquely foul stench of Kolkata’s open sewers and packed streets. Inside I had […]

Avoiding your bias on what you think your customers want

All your work, all your ideas, all your devotion and sacrifice mean nothing if you’re not confident of whom you are doing it for or why. In order to succeed—whether you are developing a new product, service, or process—you must understand the needs, wants, and sometimes fears of the person you are targeting. Why is […]

Innovation Fail

A couple of years ago my kids gave my ninety-three-year-old grandma a digital picture frame for Christmas. It contained several hundred photos that they had painstakingly selected, organized, and then downloaded onto it. Every minute or so a new image of the kids living their lives would appear; exactly the kind of thing any grandmother […]

An innovation system ensures you identify the best ideas

So, what happens if you don’t use an innovation system like FIRE to innovate and execute the strongest ideas? One of the biggest dangers of not having a way to identify and execute the best ideas is that weak ideas get selected and the results are disappointing. When this happens, management loses confidence that the organization […]

Constraining Resources To Drive Innovation

One of the keys I’ve found to successful execution is constraint based innovation. It is exactly what it sounds like. When I’m in the execution phase of the innovation process and assigning teams to various ideas, I’ll ask them, “How long will it take for you to create the product?” Whatever answer they give me, […]

Ensuring That Good Ideas Get A Chance To Prove Themselves

My motto throughout my career has been “Ideas without execution are a hobby, and I’m not in the hobby business.” Execution is a risk; it requires commitment, money, and manpower; but there’s no point going through the process of ideation if you’re not going to do anything with the end result. In the end, successful […]

Getting Your Organization Passionate About Executing The Best Ideas

The next stage is to consider how these ideas might be implemented by your organization. Step one is to think about how to pitch your best idea. Look at the top ideas and say to yourself as the leader, “These are great ideas—how can we execute them?” The following questions will help you get to […]

Prioritizing The Best Ideas To Work On

Once you’ve generated your ideas the next step is idea ranking to determine the potential to become innovations. So, how do you decide which ideas to work on? The typical innovation process leaves that decision to the senior-level managers, which seems like a logical choice. They’re senior, so they should have the wisdom to make the […]

The Future of How

Your customers will change the way they use your products in ways you don’t currently anticipate. Do you remember when you got your first cell phone? I was living in Chicago when the city was selected for the first FCC trial of a cell-phone network in 1984, and I jumped at the chance to try […]

What will your company’s value chain look like in five years?

So, how do you determine where you, as an individual or a business, will be in five years? You can’t say where exactly you’re going because you can’t predict what’s going to happen in the world. However, you can challenge yourself to change. In 2001 Apple’s sales figures were in decline. The company had yet […]

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In Beyond The Obvious, you discover how to get back to asking the right questions – ones that lead to radical breakthrough innovation. Full of real-world examples, this book will change the way you operate, innovate, and create.

These questions will re-frame the way you see your products, your customers and and your organization. Whether you’re a company of thousands or a lean startup. Beyond The Obvious will give you the skills to create game-changing innovations.

I'm an award winning innovator of products and technologies that are used each day by 100’s of millions of consumers and businesses worldwide. Most recently I served as Chief Technology Officer for Hewlett-Packard (HP).

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Contrary to conventional wisdom that innovation is a rare act of creative genius limited to the gifted few, Phil McKinney lays out practical guidelines that any professional with passion and innate inquisitiveness can use to identify, nurture, and implement new business ideas. McKinney's book contains valuable advice to aspiring innovators and is refreshing and highly informative read for any entrepreneur.
Len Sherman, adjunct professor, Columbia Business School

In Beyond The Obvious, you discover how to get back to asking the right questions – ones that lead to radical breakthrough innovation. Full of real-world examples, this book will change the way you operate, innovate, and create. More about the book ...

About Me ..

I'm an award winning innovator of products and technologies that are used each day by 100’s of millions of consumers and businesses worldwide. Most recently I served as Chief Technology Officer for Hewlett-Packard (HP).More about me ...